The King's Hand

by Anna Thayer

  “Hold out your hand,” he said.

  Trembling, the ferryman closed his eyes.

  “Please, lord,” the man breathed, stretching out a shaking hand, “have pity on my livelihood –”

  His words were broken by a gasp as the two coins dropped into his palm. Feeling their chink, he looked up in amazement. Eamon watched him.

  “You rendered me good service, ferryman.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” The man barely raised his voice above a whisper. Perhaps he feared that he was living in a terrible dream. Watching him, Eamon grew strangely angry – but not towards the ferryman. Who were the Hands, that they should make men fear for their livelihoods?

  “Stand up,” he said.

  Shaking, the man did so. Eamon firmly took hold of the man’s shoulder. “Ferryman,” he said, “no man has the right to take from you your hand or prop or life for such an error. Do you understand?”

  The oarsman stared at him in utter amazement, rain coursing down his face. Eamon held the man’s gaze. After a moment, the shaken ferryman nodded.

  “Yes, my lord.” Eamon smiled, but the oarsman gestured weakly to the bleeding horse. “Your horse, lord –”

  “Has been saved from death.” Eamon looked down and saw the horse, still tossing its head in pain. Its hind leg bled heartily. He suspected the poor beast had also sprained its muscles in its wild flail for the bank.

  “Will he still walk?” he asked, trying not to let his anxiety fill his voice. He was so close to Dunthruik!

  “Yes, my lord,” the oarsman told him. “But he will be slow, and it will hurt him. He will take no weight.”

  Eamon’s heart sank. His calculation had been to arrive in Dunthruik sometime on the following day, the twenty-sixth, and have a whole day of his time left. With his horse injured he would have to walk the distance himself. He filled with dread. He did not know if he could still arrive in time, and one thing was certain: he would have to leave the horse.

  “There are no horses here that I might take?”

  “No, my lord,” the ferryman replied. “We have some mules, farm animals mostly, but none can bear you onwards swiftly. The horses have all been taken by the Master’s messengers.”

  Eamon drew a deep breath. Eastport was both a ferry and a relay post; if all of its horses were already in use, then it spoke of the dispatch of a huge number of messengers. Most likely they had been sent out to the regions with commands from the throned. It also implied that matters in the River Realm were not as secure as most in Dunthruik were led to believe. Perhaps the defeats at Ashford Ridge and Pinewood were not isolated incidents.

  Slowly, Eamon reached up and stroked the horse’s nose.

  “Rest well,” he told it, and proceeded to unfasten the bagged head from the saddle. He took the reins and turned to the ferryman. “What is your name?”

  “Marilio Bellis, my lord.”

  Eamon pressed the reins firmly into his hands. “I must speed to Dunthruik, so I will kindly ask you to care for this poor beast. He has been a faithful servant to me.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Thank you, Mr Bellis.” Eamon touched the horse’s muzzle reassuringly, and drew his belongings together.

  “My lord!” The man spoke as Eamon turned to leave, a touch of wonder in his voice. “My lord, who are you?”

  “I am Lord Goodman, of the city of Dunthruik.”

  Marilio Bellis tugged gently at the horse’s reins. “I will bring him back to you, my lord,” he said, his face a picture of sudden but immutable fidelity.

  Eamon watched in utter surprise. He smiled. “That would be a great kindness.”

  “It would be one well deserved,” the ferryman answered.

  Eamon hefted the bag and, taking a firm grip upon it, stroked his horse’s neck one last time. “I leave you in good hands,” he told it. “I bid you farewell, Mr Bellis.”

  “Farewell, Lord Goodman.”

  Eamon turned and, wishing the rain to wash him of the anxiety dogging his steps, climbed up to the path that ran along the riverside.

  He walked until deep into the night. Though the rain all but obscured his sight, he followed the road from Eastport to the East Road. The way grew broader, and the knotted valleys widened out into open plains that ran along the River. Some of them bore fields, and Eamon saw small lights nestled at the field edges, marking villages. He had no light, his travelling companion was a severed head, and the road was desperately dark. Footsore, he pressed on. He had to see Dunthruik’s walls before nightfall on the twenty-seventh.

  You will not be in time. They will all pay, the voice sneered at him, but he did not heed it.

  The rain grew heavier, and he was forced to seek shelter beneath a large copse of trees. He stood, wrapped thickly in his cloak, his precious cargo held firmly against him. While the rain cascaded through the leaves, he turned his hands up to gather a drink. It was sweet. He was not hungry, and, as the rain clouds thinned to reveal a slim moon, he realized suddenly that he was not tired.

  Laughing, he let his sodden cloak fly freely behind him in the cold. He took to the road again. The fields stretched out by him, and the River grew to a torrent to the south. As he walked he sang to himself, quietly at first, to melodies that he did not recognize and in words more beautiful than those of any song he had ever sung. They spoke of the King, and though he’d forgotten them as soon as they left his lips, they comforted him.

  He rested a little in the morning, then went on. All that day and most of the following night, he walked, water creeping into his boots at every muddy puddle. As the dawn appeared he saw the thin grey line of the sea marking the horizon, and before it a thick bannered mark which he knew to be Dunthruik. The moon slimmed away overhead.

  It was the morning of the twenty-seventh. He took firmer hold of the bag in his hand, and strode on.

  By mid-morning the wind pushed the dawn mist away and the city was clear before him. He remembered the road – he had walked it with Cathair and again with his broken men when he returned from Pinewood. Now he walked it alone, and his heart felt unburdened. The day had dawned clear, and his cloak felt warm over his shoulders.

  He soon met the first groups of travellers – merchants with bags of discoloured grain and bakers offering dry bread at prices more than a little too high, but the winter had been harsh and it was all there was to be had. Eamon saw dying pyres to the north-east, still sending smoke into the sky. What work had they done during the night? He could at least take comfort in the certainty that his men would not be laid on them that day.

  On he walked. People bowed before him, felled by his black cloak. As he went on they stared, and as they stared he felt the smile on his face growing.

  The Blind Gate rose before him. None of it had changed. The stone eagles and the Gauntlet were on duty there, checking all who passed. The sun struck at Eamon’s eyes, temporarily blinding him from the identities of the faces he approached. As he reached the gate, a road-worn Hand with a sodden bag, the ensign on duty looked up and grew pale.

  “Lord Goodman,” he breathed, and bowed. Every man in the checking line followed his gaze and gesture.

  “May I pass?” Eamon asked gently.

  The ensign glanced at the bag, and nodded dumbly.

  Eamon thanked him and moved past. As he did so he heard his name on other lips.

  “Lord Goodman!” they cried. Turning, he saw cadet Manners emerging from the shadow of the gate, his face wide with elation.

  “You’re here!” He laughed out loud and turned to the streets by him. “He’s here!” he called. The whole street echoed it. “Lord Goodman is here!”

  Commotion stirred around him. His name ran on the wind. Heads turned. Eyes watched in awe.

  With a broad smile, Eamon looked at Manners. It was the twenty-seventh of February, and he was in Dunthruik.

  “I am going to the palace,” he said. “Will you walk with me, cadet?”

  Manners fell into step beside him with a d
elirious grin as Eamon walked the length of the Coll. Each stone seemed familiar to him and from every window, every door, every balcony – from every place where a face could look – a face watched. For many had heard of the task he had been set, and as the watching eyes saw the bag he bore and the look on his face, his name passed their lips.

  “Lord Goodman!”

  He heard people walking behind him, drawn by his return and the way his name was spoken, following him to the palace. Other cadets and soldiers, men who had served him in the city or at Pinewood, were on the Coll. His name went through the city before him and called them out of the places where they had lain and feared the breaking of that day. Each greeted him with a cry of joy and he greeted them each in turn, by name when he could. They joined the train of people walking with him.

  Soon the palace gates rose before them. The nobles and their ladies who strolled there turned to stare. Before such a mass of men, they had no choice but to draw up their skirts and cloaks and fall back to the edges of the road.

  The Hands at the Hands’ Gate did not stop him. They gazed at the crowd of men who followed him into the yard. Only a week before, those same men had been gathered to face the wrath of the Right Hand.

  He strode firmly to the hall’s colonnade. A group of Hands stood by the doors to the hall, their heads bent attentively towards a familiar face: Cathair. How long it had been since he had seen Cathair! But where once he would have quaked at the piercing power of those green eyes, Eamon now stood tall. A victorious smile passed over his face. He knew what was happening: the Hand was diligently preparing to round up all of Eamon’s men to administer the Master’s justice.

  “I want them all brought, do you understand?” Cathair’s eyes flashed with a grisly anticipation of slaughter as he spoke. “To a man.”

  “You need not trouble yourself, Lord Cathair.” Eamon was surprised by his own firm tone, but he did not rue it. He had done the task they had given him to do. Though they had sought to trap him in it, he had escaped. He had seen the King, and he knew that the King loved him. It gave him indelible strength. “I have brought my men.” And he had: the jubilant mass filed into the courtyard behind him. Seeing the Hands, they smartly took to ranks.

  Cathair looked up and stared at him. The Hand’s eyes dropped slowly to the bag Eamon held. The pallid face grew paler.

  Could it be that Cathair had not known of Eamon’s success? To whom, then, was Febian reporting?

  “It’s impossible!” one of the other Hands muttered. Cathair glared at him before smothering the glare under a sinister scowl.

  “Lord Goodman,” he said. “I was told that you might answer me regarding an incident in the Pit last week –”

  “Summon the Right Hand.”

  The Hand blinked in astonishment.

  “What?”

  A deafening silence fell.

  “Summon the Right Hand,” Eamon repeated. “I have performed a mighty task for the Master.”

  “He sees it.”

  Eamon’s blood curdled. The sudden silence had been caused not by his audacity, but by the presence of another. Every man behind him had fallen to his knees. Before him the Hands fell to theirs.

  Eamon turned to find himself looking up into the steely eyes of the throned.

  Fear cracked at his frozen courage. He stared, remembering the terrible moment but a week before when the Master’s hands had reached out and torn the heart of the King from his neck.

  Now he met the Master’s eyes. He alone remained standing.

  Slowly, he raised the bag in his hand.

  “Master,” he said, “I bring you the head of Feltumadas, heir to Anastasius of Istanaria, ally to the Serpent, and commander of an army that dared to stand against you.” He reached into the bag. His fingers touched the hair, grizzled by rain and travel, but he did not flinch. What if…?

  Momentary terror assailed him. What if the head had not retained its disguise? What if he drew out the head of a Hand?

  Wordlessly, he held the throned’s gaze. It took all of his courage. He drew out what was concealed and, showing it, bent his knee before the throned.

  “Your glory, Master.”

  Silence hung. Eamon did not dare look up. His knees trembled. As he held the heavy, bloodied head high he forced his arm to be strong.

  “Your service is accepted.” The throned’s voice spoke at last, a clap of thunder in the stillness. Eamon looked up. The Master smiled on him. It chilled his core.

  The throned nodded once to the Right Hand, who stood beside him. Eamon did not know how he could not have seen the Hand before.

  The Master turned and left, his will imparted to his Right Hand. Eamon watched as the Hand raised his voice to the stunned body of gathered men.

  “Let it be known that all those men who stood to lose their lives are, by the will of the Master, pardoned and restored to honour. This trophy,” he added, indicating the head, “will be set at the Blind Gate. To his glory.”

  “To his glory!” The courtyard erupted into a mass of rejoicing men.

  “An impressive feat, Lord Goodman.” The Right Hand’s voice was suddenly in his ear.

  “Thank you, my lord,” he answered, holding the head to one side as he bowed low.

  “You will come to the Hands’ Hall tomorrow.”

  Before he could answer, the Right Hand turned and left. Cathair half scowled at him before snatching the head from his hands and stalking after the Right Hand.

  As he watched them go, a cold sweat broke suddenly across his brow.

  Had they seen? Did they know?

  Surely they would never have pardoned his men if they had known the truth.

  A group of Third Banner cadets, led by Manners, surged up around him.

  “Long live Lord Goodman!” cried one, and it was not long before they had all taken up the cry. Eamon found himself laughing as the cadets, his cadets, ran up one by one and seized his hands.

  “Lord Goodman!”

  “How did you get the head?”

  “Did you see the Serpent?”

  “Now is not the time for me to answer these questions,” Eamon told them gently. The cadets shrugged off his answer without a shred of disappointment and his name ran around the yard on their lips. Eyes watched him from the upper windows of the Hands’ Hall, but he did not care. These men loved him, and he had proved that he loved them. He had saved them.

  Eventually the men began to leave the courtyard, eager to carry the news to any who still awaited the outcome of the day. The cadets, mindful that Waite would be waiting for them back at the college, were eventually persuaded to leave also. Eamon watched them go, deep contentment in his heart.

  “You shall be the talk of the whole city tonight, Lord Goodman,” said a voice.

  Eamon felt joy wash over him.

  “Anderas!”

  The East Quarter captain was still pale, but able to walk once again. He bore no stick and no aid.

  “Of course, I was expecting you to come at sunset, just as they had lined us up.” Anderas’s blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “I was half hoping that you would burst in, framed by the setting sun, and thunderously cry ‘Stop!’ just as they were setting sword to the first man.” He laughed. “That is how they’ll tell it in a hundred inns throughout the city tonight. It would have been very much in your style.”

  Eamon smiled broadly. “Some things cannot be left to style, captain.”

  “That is precisely where your style lies, lord,” Anderas replied. The blue eyes watched Eamon for a moment. He wished suddenly that he could tell the captain everything that had befallen him in the last seven days: if only Anderas knew the King!

  Anderas reached out and clasped hands with him like a brother. “Welcome home, Lord Goodman.”

  Home. The word no longer seemed strange to him. Yes, Dunthruik was home, and Eamon knew at last that he could live in the city and serve the King.

  “Thank you, captain,” he said.

  CHAPTER VII
I

  The day of his triumphant return to Dunthruik was a day that Eamon knew he would never forget. Every man, woman, and child answered his look with open-mouthed stares of awe. He was the man who had been made a lieutenant on the whim of a captain, surrendered his sword and escaped the wayfarers, become a first lieutenant in the West Quarter in three days, and a Hand in months. Now, he had brought back the head of the throned’s enemy and saved the lives of many. The people called his name in jubilation, for in all he did, he brought glory to the Master who ruled the city of Dunthruik. They shared in his triumph.

  And yet, in moments of quiet, Eamon wondered what the city’s wayfarers would think when they heard the news. They would not rejoice. They would weep. He was sure that Cathair would use the beheading of Feltumadas to sour the minds of the King’s men held in the Pit.

  The Right Hand granted him the remainder of the day to rest and to reorient himself. He was grateful for it, but found himself at a loss. He wandered, basking in praise from every quarter. On that day every man knew his name.

  It was about mid-afternoon when a familiar voice greeted him as he passed the Brand.

  “Hail, wanderer returned!”

  Eamon smiled. “Ladomer,” he answered, catching his breath as his friend embraced him enthusiastically.

  “I can’t believe that you did it!” Ladomer cried, slapping Eamon’s shoulder so hard that Eamon had to take a moment to recover.

  “I see being a paper carrier hasn’t dulled your arm!”

  “If I had to spar you now, like we used to in Edesfield, I’d still beat you in about three seconds,” Ladomer told him with a friendly wink.

  “I believe it!”

  “And I really can’t believe that you did what you’ve done,” Ladomer replied with a reckless grin. “I was there when Cathair brought the head into the Hands’ Hall. Ratbag, you should have seen his face! He was fuming.”

  “He was looking forward to killing them?”

  “Yes.” Ladomer shrugged. “Lord Cathair is disgusted with you, but the Master…” He gave a low whistle, smiled, and jogged Eamon’s arm. “He is impressed.”

  A chill ran down Eamon’s spine. “He is?” “He is. You forget that you address the one, only, and impeccably dressed servant of the Right Hand. He confides many things to me, Lord Goodman.”